We demonstrate how an acoustic phonon bath when coupled to a quantum dot with the help of a bichromatic laser field may effectively form a quantum squeezed reservoir. This approach allows one to achieve an arbitrary degree of squeezing of the effective reservoir and it incorporates the properties of the reservoir into two parameters, which can be controlled by varying the ratio of the Rabi frequencies of the bichromatic field. It is found that for unequal Rabi frequencies, the effective reservoir may appear as a quantum squeezed field of ordinary or inverted harmonic oscillators. When the Rabi frequencies are equal the effective reservoir appears as a perfectly squeezed field in which the decay of one of the polarization quadratures of the quantum dot dipole moment is inhibited. The decay of the quantum dot to a stationary state which depends on the initial coherence is predicted. This unusual result is shown to be a consequence of a quantum-nondemolition-type coupling of the quantum dot to the engineered squeezed reservoir. The effect of the initial coherence on the steady-state dressed-state population distribution and the fluorescence spectrum is discussed in detail. The complete polarization of the dressed state population and asymmetric spectra composed of only a single Rabi sideband peak are obtained under strictly resonant excitation.

Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference is demonstrated experimentally for entangled photon pairs in the Hermite-Gauss (HG) basis. We use two Dove prisms in one of the paths of the photons to manipulate the entangled quantum state that enters the HOM interferometer. It is demonstrated that, when entangled photon pairs are in a symmetric Bell state in the Laguerre-Gauss (LG) basis, they will remain symmetric after decomposing them into the HG basis, thereby resulting in no coincidence events after the HOM interference. On the other hand, if the photon pairs are in an antisymmetric Bell state in the LG basis, then they will also be antisymmetric in the HG basis, thereby producing only coincidence events as a result of the HOM interference.

We demonstrate that the quantum corrections to the classical arrival time for a quantum object in a potential free region of space, as computed in Phys. Rev. A 80, 030102(R) (2009), can be eliminated up to a given order of $\hslash$ by choosing an appropriate position-dependent phase for the object's wave function. This then implies that we can make the quantum arrival time of the object as close as possible to its corresponding classical arrival time, allowing us to synchronize a classical and quantum clock, which tells time using the classical and quantum arrival time of the object, respectively. We provide an example for synchronizing such a clock by making use of a quantum object with a position-dependent phase imprinted on the object's initial wave function with the use of an impulsive potential.

We consider the dynamics of a two-level system (qubit) driven by strong and short resonant pulses in the framework of Floquet theory. First we derive analytical expressions for the quasienergies and Floquet states of the driven system. If the pulse amplitude varies very slowly, the system adiabatically follows the instantaneous Floquet states, which acquire dynamical phases that depend on the evolution of the quasienergies over time. The difference between the phases acquired by the two Floquet states corresponds to a qubit state rotation, generalizing the notion of Rabi oscillations to the case of large driving amplitudes. If the pulse amplitude changes very fast, the evolution is nonadiabatic, with transitions taking place between the Floquet states. We quantify and analyze the nonadiabatic transitions during the pulse by employing adiabatic perturbation theory and exact numerical simulations. We find that, for certain combinations of pulse rise and fall times and maximum driving amplitude, a destructive interference effect leads to a remarkably strong suppression of transitions between the Floquet states. This effect provides the basis of a quantum control protocol, which we name Floquet interference efficient suppression of transitions in the adiabatic basis (FIESTA), that can be used to design ultrafast high-fidelity single-qubit quantum gates.

The decoy-state method could effectively enhance the performance of quantum key distribution (QKD) with a practical phase randomized weak coherent source. Although active modulation of the source intensity is effective and has been implemented in many experiments, passive preparation of decoy states is also an important addition to the family of decoy-state QKD protocols. In this paper, following the theory of Curty et al. [Phys. Rev. A 81, 022310 (2010)], we experimentally demonstrate the phase-encoding passive-decoy-state QKD with only linear optical setups and threshold single-photon detectors. In our experiment, two homemade independent pulsed lasers, with visibility of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference $0.53(\pm 0.003)$, have been implemented and used to passively generate the different decoy states. Finally, a secret key rate of $1.5\times {10}^{-5}$/pulse is obtained with 10-km commercial fiber between Alice and Bob.

We analyze the possibility to exploit charge-dipole interaction between a single polar molecule or a one-dimensional (1D) molecular array and a single Rydberg atom to read out molecular rotational populations. We calculate the energy shift of a single $\mathrm{Rb}(60s$) atom interacting with a single KRb or RbYb molecule in their lowest two rotational states. At atom-molecule distances, relevant to trapping of molecules in optical lattices, the Rydberg electron energy shifts conditioned on the rotational states, are of the order of several MHz. Atom excitation to a Rydberg state and detection of atomic fluorescence conditioned on a rotational state preserves the molecule, making our scheme a nondestructive measurement of the rotational state. Similarly, a 1D array of polar molecules can shift the electron energy of a blockaded Rydberg superatom. We consider a scheme to read out the molecular array collective rotational states using the conditioned Rydberg energy shifts, and numerically analyze a system with three and five KRb or RbYb molecules interacting with $\mathrm{Rb}(60s$) superatom.

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) is immune to all security loopholes on detection. Previous experiments on MDI-QKD required spatially separated signal lasers and complicated stabilization systems. In this paper, we perform a proof-of-principle experimental demonstration of plug-and-play MDI-QKD over an asymmetric channel setting with a single signal laser in which the whole system is automatically stabilized in spectrum, polarization, arrival time, and phase reference. Both the signal laser and the single-photon detectors are in the possession of a common server. A passive timing-calibration technique is applied to ensure the precise and stable overlap of signal pulses. The results pave the way for the realization of a quantum network in which the users only need the encoding devices.

One-way quantum computing is experimentally appealing because it requires only local measurements on an entangled resource called a cluster state. Record-size, but nonuniversal, continuous-variable cluster states were recently demonstrated separately in the time and frequency domains. We propose to combine these approaches into a scalable architecture in which a single optical parametric oscillator and simple interferometer entangle up to ($3\times {10}^3$ frequencies) $\times$ (unlimited number of temporal modes) into a computationally universal continuous-variable cluster state. We introduce a generalized measurement protocol to enable improved computational performance on this entanglement resource.

The growing interest in twisted light beams also requires a better understanding of their complex internal structure. Particular attention is currently being given to the energy circulation in these beams as usually described by the Poynting vector field. In the present study we propose to use the photoionization of alkali-metal atoms as a probe process to measure (and visualize) the energy flow in twisted light fields. Such measurements are possible since the angular distribution of photoelectrons, emitted from a small atomic target, appears sensitive to and is determined by the local direction of the Poynting vector. To illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method, detailed calculations were performed for the ionization of sodium atoms by nondiffractive Bessel beams.

Adiabatic frequency conversion is a method recently developed in nonlinear optics [H. Suchowski, D. Oron, A. Arie, and Y. Silberberg, Phys. Rev. A 78, 063821 (2008)], using ideas from the technique of rapid adiabatic passage (RAP) via a level crossing in quantum physics. In this method, the coupling coefficients are constant and the phase mismatch is chirped adiabatically. In this work, we propose another method for adiabatic frequency conversion, in which the phase mismatch is constant and the coupling is a pulse-shaped function with a sign flip (i.e., a phase step of $\pi$) at its maximum. Compared to the RAP method, our technique has comparable efficiency but it is simpler to implement for it only needs two bulk crystals with opposite ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$ nonlinearity. Moreover, because our technique requires constant nonzero frequency mismatch and has zero conversion efficiency on exact frequency matching, it can be used as a frequency filter.

We study effective light-matter interactions in a circuit QED system consisting of a single $LC$ resonator, which is coupled symmetrically to multiple superconducting qubits. Starting from a minimal circuit model, we demonstrate that, in addition to the usual collective qubit-photon coupling, the resulting Hamiltonian contains direct qubit-qubit interactions, which have a drastic effect on the ground- and excited-state properties of such circuits in the ultrastrong-coupling regime. In contrast to the superradiant phase transition expected from the standard Dicke model, we find an opposite mechanism, which at very strong interactions completely decouples the photon mode and projects the qubits into a highly entangled ground state. These findings resolve previous controversies over the existence of superradiant phases in circuit QED, but they more generally show that the physics of two- or multiatom cavity QED settings can differ significantly from what is commonly assumed.

We study the problem of certifying quantum steering in a detection-loophole-free manner in experimental situations that require postselection. We present a method to find the modified local-hidden-state bound of steering inequalities in such a postselected scenario. We then present a construction of linear steering inequalities in arbitrary finite dimension and show that they certify steering in a loophole-free manner as long as the detection efficiencies are above the known bound below which steering can never be demonstrated. We also show how our method extends to the scenarios of multipartite steering and Bell nonlocality, in the general case where there can be correlations between the losses of the different parties. In both cases we present examples to demonstrate the techniques developed.

We present a method to optimize qubit control parameters during error detection which is compatible with large-scale qubit arrays. We demonstrate our method to optimize single or two-qubit gates in parallel on a nine-qubit system. Additionally, we show how parameter drift can be compensated for during computation by inserting a frequency drift and using our method to remove it. We remove both drift on a single qubit and independent drifts on all qubits simultaneously. We believe this method will be useful in keeping error rates low on all physical qubits throughout the course of a computation. Our method is $O\left(1\right)$ scalable to systems of arbitrary size, providing a path towards controlling the large numbers of qubits needed for a fault-tolerant quantum computer.

We present a method to identify spurious signals generated by finite-width pulses in quantum sensing experiments and apply it to recently proposed dynamical decoupling sequences for accurate spectral interpretation. We first study the origin of these fake resonances and quantify their behavior in a situation that involves the measurement of a classical magnetic field. Here we show that a change of the initial phase of the sensor or, equivalently, of the decoupling pulses leads to oscillations in the spurious signal intensity while the real resonances remain intact. Finally we extend our results to the quantum regime for the unambiguous detection of remote nuclear spins by utilization of a nitrogen vacancy sensor in diamond.

The nonlinear optical properties of matter have a broad relevance and many methods have been invented to compute them from first principles. However, the effects of electronic correlation, finite temperature, and breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation have turned out to be challenging and tedious to model. Here we propose a straightforward approach and derive general field-free polarizability and hyperpolarizability estimators for the path-integral Monte Carlo method. The estimators are applied to small atoms, ions, and molecules with one or two electrons. With the adiabatic, i.e., Born-Oppenheimer, approximation we obtain accurate tensorial ground state polarizabilities, while the nonadiabatic simulation adds in considerable rovibrational effects and thermal coupling. In both cases, the 0 K, or ground-state, limit is in excellent agreement with the literature. Furthermore, we report here the internal dipole moment of PsH molecule, the temperature dependence of the polarizabilities of ${\mathrm{H}}^{-}$, and the average dipole polarizabilities and the ground-state hyperpolarizabilities of ${\mathrm{HeH}}^{+}$ and $\mathrm{H}{{}_3}^{+}$.

High-order harmonic generation by a bicircular field, which consists of two coplanar counter-rotating circularly polarized fields of frequency $r\omega$ and $s\omega$ ($r$ and $s$ are integers), is investigated for a polyatomic molecule. This field possesses dynamical symmetry, which can be adjusted to the symmetry of the molecular Hamiltonian and used to investigate the molecular symmetry. For polyatomic molecules having the $C_{r+s}$ symmetry, only the harmonics $n=q(r+s)\pm r,q=1,2,...,$ are emitted having the ellipticity ${\varepsilon }_n=\pm 1$. We illustrate this using the example of the planar molecules ${\mathrm{BH}}_3$ and ${\mathrm{BF}}_3$, which obey the $C_3$ symmetry. We show that for the ${\mathrm{BF}}_3$ molecule, similarly to atoms with a $p$ ground state, there is a strong asymmetry in the emission of high harmonics with opposite helicities. This asymmetry depends on the molecular orientation.

We theoretically investigate an ultracold spin-polarized atomic Fermi gas with resonant odd-channel $(p$-wave) interactions trapped in one-dimensional harmonic traps. We solve the Yang-Yang thermodynamic equations based on the exact Bethe ansatz solution, and predict the finite-temperature density profile and breathing mode frequency by using a local density approximation to take into account the harmonic trapping potential. The system features an exotic super fermionic Tonks-Girardeau (super-fTG) phase, due to the large effective range of the interatomic interactions. We explore the parameter space for such a fascinating super-fTG phase at finite temperature and provide smoking-gun signatures of its existence in both breathing mode frequencies and density profiles. Our results suggest that the super-fTG phase can be readily probed at temperatures of about $0.1T_F$, where $T_F$ is the Fermi temperature. These results are to be confronted with future cold-atom experiments with ${}^6\mathrm{Li}$ and ${}^{40}\mathrm{K}$ atoms.

The frequency and transmission spectrum of a two-dimensional array of metallic rods is investigated numerically. Based on the recent analysis of the band structure of two-dimensional photonic crystals with dielectric rods [Phys. Rev. A 92, 043814 (2015)], we identify two types of bands in the frequency spectrum: Bragg ($\mathcal{P}$) bands resulting from a periodicity and Fano ($\mathcal{F}$) bands which arise from Fano resonances associated with each of the cylinders within the periodic structure. It is shown that the existence of the Fano band in a certain frequency range is manifested by a Fano resonance in the transmittance. In particular, we reexamine the symmetry properties of the $H$-polarized band structure in the frequency range where the spectrum consists of the localized modes associated with the single-scatterer resonances and we explore the process of formation of Fano bands by identifying individual terms in the expansion of the linear combination of atomic orbitals states. We demonstrate how the interplay between the two scattering mechanisms affects the properties of the resulting band structure when the radius of cylinders is increased. We show that a different character of both kinds of bands is reflected in the spatial distribution of the magnetic field, which displays patterns corresponding to the corresponding irreducible symmetry representations.

We consider a one-dimensional cavity composed of two perfect, fixed mirrors and a mobile membrane in between. Assuming that the membrane starts to move from rest and that the membrane moves appreciably in a time scale much larger than the time scale in which the cavity electromagnetic field evolves appreciably, we derive simple analytic formulas that describe to good approximation the evolution of the field and that provide an intuitive physical picture. These formulas take into account the position, velocity, and acceleration of the membrane and are valid for arbitrarily large displacements of the membrane along the cavity axis. Also, we deduce the conditions under which the field can be described to good approximation by a single instantaneous mode.